I turned around and got the truck back to the highway

so Linda could drive across the severity of western Utah, past Sevier [pron. “severe”] Lake,

through Delta and towards Holden where we began to see the beginnings of what came

to be called the Wild Goose Fire as well as roadwork on 50 as Red Flag warnings made

for perfect wildfire weather across the entire west…by Scipio 50 was closed so in intense

winds we fueled and I took over to follow the detour suggested by the Sheriff –

up the interstate to intersect 28 just below Levan and later 89 down to Salina, putting us late onto 70 and quite late for a very dry and windy lunch which due to unforeseen circumstances

extended far into the afternoon before I was able to drive, propelled by the prevailing winds,

through the Rest of Utah. Approaching the border we began to see the beginnings

of the Snyder Fire which, whipped by winds and low humidity, grew rapidly,

its smoke inundating Fruita, our destination for the night*.  Locating lodging in the Super 8

we dragged ourselves across the parking lot to El Tapatío for camarones al chipotle [the dogs loved the shrimpskins], fish tacos, a margarita and in my case not one but two XX which definitely improved the outlook…

After not the greatest sleep Linda drove, relieved to find

that on a Sunday Grand Junction’s and Delta’s congestion was considerably less

and took us all the way to a very dry Blue Mesa Reservoir at Steven’s Creek Campground.

This was followed by a sometimes crowded sometimes not run through Gunnison and over Monarch where on the descent a Tennessee van held downhill traffic to a white-knuckled 25 mph most of the way, massive Safeway shopping in Salida in the heat and L. skillfully threading her way through the recreationalists on 50 until the Cotopaxi cutoff set us free and we landed

in a very dry Westcliffe for gas [note snowless fourteeners] followed by a very dry Libre.

Unloading was gradual, smoke was from…somewhere…and Monday

I even made it up to the studio where after an hour spent mostly on the couch roused myself

to discover, uh-oh, the beginning of what eventually became known as the Sheep Head Fire.  Cause allegedly unknown but since it started adjacent to a billionaire boys’ club hunting lodge* I’d suspect one of the residents, considering themselves above the law most likely felt themselves above the laws of physics as well, was probably out plinking in the dry afternoon

wind and…Fortunately those dry winds sent most of the smoke to the east initially but by the

light of the full moon things were looking a little less promising.

To be continued…

*Three Firefighters died that night.

**If you checked the link and noticed that the $19+mil property is off the market it’s probably because all the lovely pictures were taken before the Spring Creek Fire and is now mostly surrounded by eight year old patches of scrub oak. Burnt scrub oak as of this week.